Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham at a news conference in St. John’s on Tuesday.Paul Daly/The Canadian Press
Getting caught up on a week that got away? Here’s your weekly digest of The Globe’s most essential business and investing stories, with insights and analysis on the biggest headlines, stock tips, personal finance strategies and more.
Newfoundland Premier seeks new deal with Quebec on Churchill River energy
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham said he wants to strike a new deal with Quebec on Churchill River power, forcing a renegotiation of an agreement trumpeted by the two provinces less than two years ago, Nicolas Van Praet reports.
Mr. Wakeham told reporters at a Tuesday news conference that his government rejects the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on energy co-operation with Quebec that was signed by his predecessor in December, 2024. He said the government agrees with the conclusions of an independent committee, which reviewed the deal, that the MOU in its current form is not in the public interest.
Under the agreement, Newfoundland would win significantly more revenue for electricity generated at the existing Churchill Falls station, as Quebec increases the price it pays for the energy. It would also lay out a partnership between Hydro-Québec and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro for three new production projects along the river.
Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette signalled she’s open to renegotiating the MOU, saying she spoke to Mr. Wakeham and will meet with him in the near future.
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham invites Quebec back to the bargaining table after a panel recommended changes to a draft energy deal between the provinces. Wakeham hopes Ottawa will help those talks.
The Canadian Press
CRTC raises Canadian content funding requirement for streamers, in move that could deepen U.S. rift
A holiday movie set in Almonte, Ont., in 2024. Under new rules, streamers - many of them based in the U.S. - will need to pay more money into supporting Canadian content.DAVE CHAN/Getty Images
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is implementing new rules for online streaming services, such as Netflix, that will force them to devote more of their revenues to Canadian and Indigenous content, Irene Galea and Josh O’Kane report.
The broadcast regulator’s new policies will require streamers to use 15 per cent of their Canadian revenue to support domestic programming – a major jump from the 5-per-cent baseline requirement announced in 2024. Meanwhile, the CRTC lowered the minimum rate for traditional broadcasters to 25 per cent.
The new framework comes three years after Ottawa passed the Online Streaming Act, requiring the CRTC to impose spending requirements on streamers – which the Trump administration has cited as a trade irritant. It is one of several Canadian policies expected to be targeted by the U.S. in the upcoming review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Tim Hortons ramps up expansion with plans for 80 new locations in Canada
A Tim Hortons in Toronto on Thursday. The chain’s parent company plans to build 80 new locations by the end of this year.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Restaurant Brands International Inc. plans to build 80 new Tim Hortons locations by the end of this year, and to renovate another 400 in that same period , Susan Krashinsky Robertson reports. The total investment will represent $130-million by Restaurant Brands and another $270-million by its franchisees.
“Our restaurant count has been fairly static since 2019, and the Canadian population has grown about 10 per cent since then,” Tim Hortons chief operating officer Naira Saeed said in an interview. “And so we’ve been trying to figure out where the folks are, what are the communities that are currently underserved.”
The company is announcing the plans as the market for coffee, doughnuts and breakfast offerings is heating up. Montreal-based Foodtastic Inc. announced plans to revive the Dunkin’ brand in Canada, and to open hundreds of stores in the coming years.
Sherritt signs deal that would give majority ownership to a former Trump official
Ray Washburne's Texas-based Gillon Capital would gain majority ownership of Sherritt if the deal goes ahead.Evan Vucci/The Associated Press
Canadian miner Sherritt International was forced to suspend its operations in Cuba in February after the United States imposed hefty sanctions on the country. Now, the Toronto-based company said it is nearing a sale, Jameson Berkow reports.
Sherritt said Wednesday it had signed a non-binding share purchase warrant agreement with Gillon Capital LLC. If exercised within nine months of the deal closing, the warrant would give Gillon a 55-per-cent ownership stake in the company. Gillon Capital is the investment vehicle of the Washburne family, which includes Ray Washburne, a real estate investor and former Trump administration official.
Sherritt operates a nickel and cobalt refinery in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., where the raw materials extracted from Cuba are refined. Sherritt has previously said the refinery’s metal supply is expected to run out by mid-June.
Prediction markets are coming to Canada – and young investors are already betting on them
Jake Chung, 21, of Bellevue, Wash., is an undergraduate student studying finance who has been trading on prediction markets for income.M. Scott Brauer/The Globe and Mail
Online brokerages and fintech firms, such as Wealthsimple and Interactive Brokers Canada, are pushing to bring prediction trading – online platforms where users can trade on, well, anything – to Canada.
Investors north of the border have been accessing U.S.-based prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi through virtual private networks, or VPNs, that disguise their location. At the same time, waves of young do-it-yourself investors have moved from meme stocks to cryptocurrency and now prediction markets, chasing faster gains in an economy where traditional paths to wealth feel increasingly out of reach.
Meera Raman spoke to lawyers and young traders about the discipline and risk that goes into successful prediction trading. For example, Jake Chung, a 21-year-old student in Bellevue, Wash., built an artificial intelligence model that scans sports broadcasts to help him predict, and wager on, whether certain words will be spoken during future games. Earlier this year, he placed a trade on whether the word “Jordan” would be mentioned in a sports broadcast. It was, and he made more than US$300 in seconds.
The result is a tricky balancing act for Canadian regulators, which must now determine how to safely introduce a fast-growing financial product at a moment when many younger investors are already embracing riskier forms of trading. But prediction trading is already here, and its expansion in Canada feels inevitable. The question is: Are we ready?
(On Thursday, May 28 at 11 a.m. ET, Meera Raman will answer reader questions about the budding prediction market in Canada. Submit your questions here.)
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b. Taxpayers are shelling out about $82-million in funding per game in Canada, according to an analysis released this week by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. What remains unclear is exactly what benefits Canada is getting in return for subsidizing FIFA, the governing body of international football and one of the world’s richest sports organizations. The cities that are most affected have gone out of their way to keep the key documents secret.
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